(LISIDEIUS’S VIEWS ABOUT

SUPERIORITY OF FRENCH
DRAMA OVER ENGLISH
DRAMA)

Rizwana Zakir
BS English VII ‘A’
Roll # 17018
National University of Modern
Languages Islamabad
  
Lisideius’s view in favour of the Superiority of the French Drama over the English Drama:
Lisideius speaks in favour of the French. He agrees with Eugenius that in the last generation the English drama was superior.
Then they had their Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher. But English drama has decayed and declined since then. They live in an
awful age full of bloodshed and violence, and poetry is an art of peace. In the present age, it flourishes
in France and not in England. The French have their Corneille (1606-84), and the English have no dramatist equal to him.

The French are superior to the English for various reasons:

1. They follow the Ancients. They favour the Unity of time and they observe it so carefully. When it comes to the Unity of
Place, they are equally careful. In most of their plays, the entire action is limited to one place. And the Unity of Action is even
more obvious. Their plays are never over-loaded with sub-plots as is the case with the English plays. The attention of the
English playwrights is constantly diverted from one action to the other, and its due effects. This fault of double-action gives
rise to another fault till the end. Lisideius therefore concludes: no drama in the world is as absurd as the English tragic-
comedy. The French plays also have much variety but they do not provide it in such a bizarre manner.

2. The Plots of the French tragedies are based on well-known stories with reference to the theory and practice of the
Ancients, but these stories are transformed for dramatic purposes; in this regard they are superior even to the Ancients.
Their stories are mixture of truth with fiction, based on historical invention. They both delight and instruct, at one and the
same time, but the English dramatists for example Shakespeare, do not modify and transform their stories for dramatic
purpose. In order to satisfy the human soul, the drama must have verisimilitude (likeness to reality). The French plays have it,
while the English do not.

3. The French do not burden the play with a fat plot. They represent a story which will be one complete action, and
everything which is unnecessary is carefully excluded, but the English burden their plays with actions and incidents which
have no logical and natural connection with the main action so much so that an English play is a mere compilation. Hence the
French plays are better written than the English ones.

4. The English devote considerable attention to one single character, and the others are merely introduced to set off that
principal character, but Lisideius does not support or favour this practice. In the English plays, one character is more
important than the others, but in French plays, the other characters are not neglected. While in the French plays such
narrations are made by those who are in some way or the other connected with the main action. Similarly the French are
more skilled than the Ancients.

5. Further, the French narrations are better managed and more skilful than those of the English. The French are able to avoid
the representation of scenes of bloodshed, violence and murder on the stage, such scenes of horror and tumult has
disfigured many English plays. In this way, they avoid much that is ridiculous and absurd in the English plays. The major
imperfection of English plays is the representation of Death on the stage. All passions can be in a lively manner represented
on the stage, only if the actor has the necessary skill, but there are many actions which cannot be successfully represented,
and dying is one of them. The French omit the same mistake. Death should better be described or narrated rather than
represented. The French are superior to the English in other ways, too.

References
1. https://wikieducator.org/Dryden_Dramatic_Poesy
2. https://www.academia.edu/Arka_Mitra_Drydens_comparison_between_French_and_British_drama
3. Mace, D. (1962). Dryden's Dialogue on Drama. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 25(1/2).